Asus Maximus Formula SE X38 - Living Review.

[Nuckin_Futs]

[QUOTE=Clunk;3488]You are asking some impossible questions, thats probably why no-one has replied. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I meant them is "no sciance", general experience questions only.

So disregard the earlier wording and just let me ask as in general, average, and in a non sciance matter. I never expected people to go buy and test in this mobo. I meant to the owners/users of the said parts (ie; E6750 or Crucial PC2-8500).

I'm manny time aware of the lluck of the draw and have experienced it myself so many times and this somewhat good draw w/ my current E6750 and MAXIMUS are a great example. I was only llooking to see if others are having as good luck with these (2) parts in question. I have (2) of the E6750's to compare and they do the same for a 1-2MHz FSB differencon the same mobo's (tested on ASUS P5K Deluxe, P5K-C, Abit IP-35 Pro, Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3r, & MAXIMUS FORMULA SE)

As for the RAM, ya, I'm gonna go look into that. Now as a general question, Are the X38's on DDR2 any less finicky then those of the P35's on DDR2 with RAM deviders outside of 1:1 (ie; 3:4, 4:5, 5:6)?

Thanks for you quick reply and input!

[Clunk]

[quote=Nuckin_Futs;3521]

Originally Posted by Clunk

As for the RAM, ya, I'm gonna go look into that. Now as a general question, Are the X38's on DDR2 any less finicky then those of the P35's on DDR2 with RAM deviders outside of 1:1 (ie; 3:4, 4:5, 5:6)?

Thanks for you quick reply and input!

I have found the X38 and P35 to be pretty similar in their max Mhz they can do on the RAM, as well as the tightness of the timings, so not much in it at all.

Hard to say on the dividers until the BIOSes mature on the X38 and we can really see what is stable and what isnt....it's all a bit unclear at the moment, or at least it is to me

[Nuckin_Futs]

Cool. Any advice on apps to test for perfomance differences (other then just stressing)?

For example I can do my everyday 500x7 as 3.5GHz in 1DR1000 and it feels great. I can also do the 500x8 as 4GHz (needs fine tuning), and feels bout the same even though Everest Rambench shows it's better in "numbers". or I can do a few deviders as the 475x8 as 3.8GHz w/ a 4:5 but RAM needs closer to 2.29v to stay there but feels nice in of corse scores higher in Everest RAMbenh.

So What type of test apps can test for closer to "real world" usage as I'm not a big gamer? I'd be more interested in number crunching test and audi/video transcoding as well as the rest of the Adobe creative suite stuff. I just wanna' see the loss or gain between my various settings till I get higher but lower volted RAM in here.

[Nuckin_Futs]

K, back to the review part of

So far, this mobo has given more then expected from what others can say or write of it. Fo otherhand, it is only in the daily user experience that I can say it is par for what should be for an "Elite" board. I like to overclock like the bunch of us her so I can only wish it did or offered better in some areas as mention throughout this tread, but it is young and still growing so let's give it a chance to proove otself worthy of a "republic Of Gamer" member. The same was said of the former CROSSHAIR I baught when new and it's doing fine for me.

Overclocking; I can only speak for this in the use of a Dual Core (ie; E6750) so granted, the advantages of higher FSB will be in my favor. Not having core by core GTL REF tweaking may add to the lesser FSB height of some quads, hard to say this early. I can add, that at 500FSB didn't really require much more then @ 450-475, and temps were fair from what I se you guys eporting. Example; @ 4GHz (1.54v) as 500x8 in 1:1 @ 4-4-4-12 in Prime95 v25.4 running 37min, = CPU: 55c + cores 1&2: 66/66c, MB: 30c, NB: 47c (1.50v), SB: 40c (1.10v), in case w/ all fans on full while under load. 3x scyth S-Flex 120mm @ 1600RPM (1 each; CPU, case front IN, & rear OUT) + 120mm in PSU.

[B]From The Get Go;B] On October 11th, it actually was up and running in moments and as 400x8 and voltages to "Auto" and booted right into my existing RAID carried over from P5K Deluxe and allowed me to play6 round w/ it till a week later when I had time to fresh install OS. I was impressed with how easy it was to climb ot 500x7 on trapped 333 or "Auto" to go back to the daily user settings I was used to on my previous builds with these (2) cores still on BIOS v0401. In fact it did fine for the few weeks that bout time I noticed an update, we were @ BIOSS v0602 so went directly to it.

ACPI: At 500x7 or 8, it actually still responds to full ACPI modes (BIOS v0401 or v0602). It can enter S1/3 (Stand By/Sleap), resume, then enter S4 (Hibernate) on either on command or in full auto where it resumes from S1/3 then enters S4 on its own (if set up correctly in OS). In the past, a lot of my ASUS buils had trouble with full working ACPI at a certain FSB OC so again, I'm very impressed here, as I actuall use this as a daily user PC.

That's my personal experience with this motherboard to date

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by Nuckin_Futs

Cool. Any advice on apps to test for perfomance differences (other then just stressing)?

For example I can do my everyday 500x7 as 3.5GHz in 1DR1000 and it feels great. I can also do the 500x8 as 4GHz (needs fine tuning), and feels bout the same even though Everest Rambench shows it's better in "numbers". or I can do a few deviders as the 475x8 as 3.8GHz w/ a 4:5 but RAM needs closer to 2.9v to stay there but feels nice in of corse scores higher in Everest RAMbenh.

So What type of test apps can test for closer to "real world" usage as I'm not a big gamer? I'd be more interested in number crunching test and audi/video transcoding as well as the rest of the Adobe creative suite stuff. I just wanna' see the loss or gain between my various settings till I get higher but lower volted RAM in here.

You will find that there is very little real life performance, that you would actually notice, from say, DDR2-1000 to 12000, or even from using really tight timings, or from using a high FSB. Of course, there may be applications that take advantage of the extra speed, but that is something you need to test for yourself, with the applications that you use.

I personally use Sandra, not because it is better than any other, just because I have used it for a while, and I have a long list of screenies with sandra scores on that I can refer to if needed. Just use whatever you prefer, and stick to it.

[DMight]

First, Clunk, thanks so much for this thread...it's helped me piece together my new system. Great info.

So, in brief, it seems I'm getting a driver conflict with the SupremeFXII (AD1988B) audio onboard the Maximus Formula, thought I don't know with what. I believe I've narrowed the problem down to the onboard audio because when I remove the drivers or simply turn HD Audio off in the BIOS my problem goes away.

System specs:

Intel Q6600 G0 (16hrs prime stable on MFSE @ 400 FSB)
Asus Maximus Formula SE 701 bios
G.Skill PC2-8000 (2x2gb)
Thermaltake Tough Power 700W PSU
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme w/ Scythe SSF21F
Coolermaster Centurion 5 Case
BFG 8800GT OC
Windows XP Pro x64

The problem is this. When playing a 3D game, I get "stuttering" that is to say the game pauses for a few seconds while the audio (whatever sound was playing at the time) loops until the pause is done.

This problem is present in any BIOS revision (started with 505 and I currently have 701 installed), it is present with two different PCIE cards (a PNY 7900GS and BFG 8800GT), it is also present regardless of whether I am overclocking or running at stock speeds.

The stuttering goes away when I disable the HD Audio in the BIOS, or when I uninstall the drivers. I can then play Crysis at HIGH settings with no problem whatsoever, runs great...just no audio. The audio problem also presents itself during playback of video. I downloaded an HD trailer from the Quicktime website and the same thing occurs, the audio loops for a few seconds and the video pauses until the audio returns.

Um...lessee, what else. I am using the JMicron PATA controller on the motherboard to use my IDE DVD Drive. I've seen the JMicron controller referred to as "the dreaded JMicron controller" so I don't know if that's a red flag or if that might be causing the conflict.

I'm next going to change the settings in the BIOS from HD Audio to AC'97 and see if maybe that addresses the problem.

Can anyone offer advice/troubleshooting steps? Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Thanks in advance.

[DMight]

Here's a quick update on my driver conflict issue.

I changed the BIOS setting from HD Audio to AC'97...same problem.

I disabled the JMicron controller to see if that might be conflicting...same problem.

I'm running out of ideas of things I might try. Anyone else running XP 64-bit?

Thanks again.

[Nuckin_Futs]

Who can share links to "refferences" (Intel white paper or likewise) as to what is really nominal, opposed to, "too high" voltages and related temps for the X38 xystem, the MAXIMUS more partiiculer?

My daily rig in PC Probe II "Optimal" Control runs at idle of 47c on the NB (@1.50v) & 44c on the SB (1.10v), and cools just a tad under load, but only cause fans are on high.

This kind of OC took 1.6v on my !975X and I believe 1.5 was the "nominal" then for that chipset NB.

[DMight]

Here are the next steps that I tried. Interesting things happening.

I switched my 8800GT to the 2nd PCIE slot. That seemed to run OK for a bit until I got a good old fashioned freeze...my first with this system so far. The 8800GT was very hot so I suspect that putting the card in the 2nd PCIE slot didn't allow enough ventilation.

I moved the card back to the 1st PCIE slot and rebooted, and started up Crysis. I played for ~45 minutes without incident. I quit out of the game then started it up again and, sure enough, there was the stuttering audio/video.

So, are the drivers not resetting themselves properly or something? The above replicates my first experience using the 7900GS. It played fine for a good long while, but as soon as I exited the game and tried to use another graphics function I get the stuttering. And by graphics function I mean something as simple as opening the NVIDIA Control Panel. In the NVIDIA Control Panel, the spinning logo will cause this stuttering to occur...but again, only if I have installed the AD1988B audio drivers.

Really frustrating. I'm tempted to try and find one of the new PCIE X-Fi cards and try it out...though everything I read suggests that Creative Labs' drivers are terrible too.

Right now, I'm hoping for some miraculous driver update from ASUS since I can't find AD1988B drivers anywhere else.

[DMight]

OK...the system began to exhibit the "stuttering" behavior with the HD Audio disabled in the BIOS. Now I'm unsure what could be causing this. Is this a bad motherboard?

I've reset to stock speeds again and enabled the HD Audio, reinstalled the drivers and the problem is immediately apparent when opening the NVIDIA Control Panel...again, the spinning NVIDIA logo "stutters". What in the world could be causing this?

Thanks again, any and all suggestions are welcome.